Atlantis (19 page)

The noise was gone after three seconds to be followed by another hissing noise. “Watch out!” Ariana yelled, but it was too late.

A gold beam punched through the top left corner of the console area and caught Daley in the upper left chest. Flesh slowed it not the slightest as the beam came out his lower right back and pierced through the skin of the aircraft on the forward right side of the console area.

Daley's eyes were wide with shock, then he screamed as he toppled over, the beam slicing flesh as easily as the paper had been cut. He was dead and the scream silenced before he hit the floor in two pieces.

“Everyone freeze!” Ariana ordered.

The interior of the plane was silent. Eyes turned toward the left side of the plane, waiting for another hole to be punched. After a minute, Ariana slowly walked over to Daley's body. She draped a cloth over it, avoiding the gold beam.

There was a long period of silence as everyone watched Daly’s blood soak through the cloth.

Ariana fixed Hudson with her gaze across the light. “Will the SATCOM radio work if we reconnect the cable to the dish?”

“It should,” Hudson said.

“I'll do it,” Peter Mansor said.

“You're crazy!” Herrin yelled. “Did you hear that thing that went across us? Don't you think they can get you with the light beam if you go outside?”

Mansor ignored him. “Where does the cable run?”

“Come to my area and I'll show you,” Hudson said.

By moving to the left side of the plane and ducking, they were able to get under the beam and go forward.

Hudson reached into a drawer and pulled out a binder. “It's not as bad as you think,” he said. “There's a chance the cable's failed before it goes up to the rotodome. That means it's cut along the access corridor in the inside top of the plane. You might not have to go outside at all.”

“Luck doesn't seem to be coming in bunches here,” Mansor noted.

“Hey, we're alive,” Ariana countered, aware that the others were listening. “We should have died in the crash, but for some reason we didn’t. So let's keep a positive attitude. We get the SATCOM working, we can get a hold of my father and he'll get us out of here, no matter what it takes.”

Herrin gave a sharp laugh at that, but he didn't say anything as the glares of the others kept the words from coming forth.

Hudson pointed at a small panel above his workstation. “That's how you get into the access crawlspace.”

Mansor stood on the front of the desk and pushed the panel out of the way. He stuck his head into the darkness and then turned a flashlight on and looked about.

“Do you see a group of wires to your right?” Hudson asked.

“Yes.”

“That's the commo leads to the rotodome. The HF goes forward, so all you have there are the SATCOM and FM. The FM goes down to the FM antenna in the belly. The ones that go to the rear; those are the SATCOM cables. Just follow them.”

Mansor looked down. “Mighty tight up here.”

“You can make it,” Hudson assured him. “When the cables disappear up, you'll be right below the rotodome. Let's hope the break is before then.”

“Yeah, right,” Mansor said. He grabbed the edge of the small opening and pulled himself up.

The last glimpse Ariana and the others had of him were his boots disappearing, heading toward the rear of the plane. They could hear him slowly moving above their heads and as he began making his way to the rear, they followed inside the plane, just below him, everyone tensed, waiting for a hissing noise.

*****

The door to his glass cubicle was shut, isolating Foreman from the others in his operations center. He flipped a lever putting the satellite call he had just received on the speakerphone.

The voice that echoed off the glass walls was incredulous at what Foreman had just told him. “You've been doing this since 1946 and you don't have any idea what you're dealing with?”

“Mister President, I have some idea of what we’re dealing with,” Foreman's voice was level. He had long anticipated this moment and he had known it would not go pleasantly, but that was not a concern of his.

There was the sound of paper rustling on the other end. “I'm looking at a report here from 1968. It tells me we lost a nuclear submarine checking out, what do you call it, this Bermuda Triangle Gate?”

“That's correct, sir. The
USS Scorpion.
“

“This Bermuda Triangle Gate is the Bermuda Triangle, isn't it?” The President didn't pause for an answer. “A myth.”

“No, sir, it's not. The crew of the
Scorpion
was not killed by a myth.”

“What were they killed by?”

“I don't know, sir.”

The explosion from the other end caused even Foreman to stiffen in his hard backed seat. “Good Lord, man! Fifty years and you don't know? An entire submarine lost with its crew and you don't know? And what else? I see here a spy plane working for you was also lost. And a Special Forces team that you sent in to recover the spy plane's black box never made it back out.”

Foreman leaned forward. “Someone came out from that Special Forces team, sir.”

“One man? So?”

“It looks like he's going back in, sir.”

“And?” The President’s voice was sharp. “We just lost a satellite and a nuclear reactor. God help us if any of that radioactive material comes down over a populated area.”

Foreman glanced at the papers taped to the glass wall. “Sir, we've got a bigger problem than that.”

There was a long pause, then the President's voice came back, under tight control. “And that is?”

“Our spy satellites are picking up electromagnetic and radioactive disturbances at various places around the globe.” Foreman paused, but no one interrupted him so he continued. “The signature of these disturbances is the same that always presages activation of the Angkor, Devil’s Sea or Bermuda Triangle Gates but this is occurring in greater quantity than we’ve ever seen and at some locations where we suspected there might be Gates but weren’t certain.”

“How many signatures?” the President asked.

“Sixteen, sir.”

“Where?”

“All over the globe.”

“Where in United States?” the President clarified.

“The readings aren't exact, sir, but Bermuda Triangle Gate appears ready to open again. If it expands twenty percent from the largest perimeter we’ve recorded, it will touch Miami. But we've also got two new sites, one on the Baja Peninsula south of San Diego and one just off the shore of Alaska, near Valdez, the southern terminal of the Alaskan Pipeline. There's also one in Canada, north of Calgary. From what I'm reading, the Gates that could open at each of these sites would be roughly triangular and almost two hundred miles along each side.”

Silence reigned for a few moments, then the President spoke again. “Going back to the start of this conversation, Mister Foreman, can you give me any idea what these Gates are, other than whoever and whatever goes into them never comes out? A Gate indicated to me that you think these things lead somewhere. Where?”

“Sir, I've had the best minds study the available data, unfortunately we don't have much information other than the facts you just received. As far as we can determine, we believe Devil’s Sea, Bermuda Triangle and Angkor Gates to be any of several things:

“One possibility is that they could be a door to another dimension that we don't recognize yet with our current level of physics. Another is a gateway to an alternate universe coexisting with ours. Another could be an attempt by an alien culture to open an interstellar gateway from their location to Earth. Another could simply be a physical anomaly of our planet itself, which we have not yet figured out. Or it could be something totally beyond our capability to understand.”

“That's not helping much,” the President said.

“Sir, I haven't been the only one interested in this phenomenon. The Russians and Japanese have also studied them. In fact, over the years, the Russians have been much more interested in this than we had been. They do have two Gates inside their borders.”

“And what have
they
discovered?”

“Not much more than we have, sir. Besides investigating their two Events, I know they've managed to lose two submarines investigating Bermuda Triangle Gate and several planes over Angkor Gate. I also believe they've sent two ground elements into the Angkor Gate in Cambodia. One in 1956 and one in 1978. Both disappeared without a trace.”

“What about their Gates?” the President asked.

“Naturally, I don’t have much information on that. One is in Lake Baikal. The other--” Foreman paused, then plunged in. “The other is located right around Chernobyl. The Russians believe that the disaster at that plant was somehow connected to this.”

“Yeah, they’d like to believe anything,” the President snarled, “but the fact that they couldn’t build a decent nuclear power plant.”

“I can’t really comment on that,” Foreman said. “But I also know that the Japanese have lost ships and submarines in what I call Devil’s Sea Gate and they call the Devil’s Sea. The latest intelligence report indicates that they have an active cell inside their government that is keeping tabs on the Devil’s Sea Gate, much like what I am doing.  There are some who believe their recent earthquake and resulting tsunami might be related to the Devil’s Sea Gate.”

Foreman could sense the growing frustration on the other side of the world. He continued on. “But the Russians do have a theory, sir, and some of this new data our satellites are collecting, these new locations, tends to support that theory somewhat in some of its aspects.”

“What do they think it is?” the President asked.

“In the 60's, three Russian scientists published an article in
Khimiyai Zhizn
, the journal of the old Soviet Academy of Sciences. The title was: Is The Earth A Large Crystal?”

There was no comment about that. Foreman knew that the seriousness of what was going on was finally sinking in to warrant the silence after such a statement.

“The three Russian scientists had backgrounds in history, electronics and engineering, a rather eclectic group. They started with a theory that a matrix of cosmic energy was built into our planet at the time of its formation and that we can still see the effects of this matrix today in such places as Angkor Gate or Bermuda Triangle.”

“Oh, give me a break,” a new voice exclaimed, “I've never heard such poppycock.”

“That's Professor Simmons, my science adviser,” the President informed Foreman. “He just got here a few minutes ago and I wanted him to listen in on this.”

“Should I continue?” Foreman asked, “or perhaps Professor Simmons has a better theory.”

“I'll discuss what he has to think when I'm done with you,” the President said. “Continue.”

“The Russian theory divides the world into twelve pentagonal slabs. On top of those slabs are twenty equilateral triangles. Using this overlay, they point out that these triangles have had a great influence on the world in many ways: fault lines for earthquakes lie along them; magnetic anomalies exist; ancient civilizations tended to be clustered along some of them.

“What’s most interesting to our current situation is that there are places called Vile Vortices at the juncture of some of these large triangles. One such place is Bermuda Triangle Gate also known as the Bermuda Triangle. Another is Angkor Gate in Cambodia, which we believes centers around an ancient city called Angkor Kol Ker. Devil’s Sea Gate, called the Devil’s Sea off the east coast of Japan is another. Chernobyl was built adjacent to one of these sites. The Lake Baikal site is also at one of these junctures. These new Gates that are now showing magnetic anomalies are also at Vile Vortices.”

“Why are these places acting up now?” the President asked.

“I don't know, sir. Over the years I've seen quite an ebb and flow to Devil’s Sea, Bermuda Triangle and Angkor to the point where there is no trace of them at all at certain times. The Russians feel that there is an internal mathematical harmony to this entire crystalline structure and that explains the rhythmic nature of the disturbances.”

“Do
you
believe this Russian theory?”

“I don't disbelieve it, sir, until I know exactly what is causing it.”

“Ahh--” Simmons’ voice sounded in the background.

“Go ahead, Professor,” the President said.

“The Earth as a big crystal theory is a bunch of poppycock,” Simmons said. “The lithosphere, the outer surface of the planet, which is where these Events are located, has been moving for millions of years. Thus any crystal formation would be so disfigured by continental drift as to make such patterns unrecognizable. Also, there is no evidence in the first place of the planet having any sort of massive crystalline structure.”

“Anything to say to that, Foreman?” the President asked.

Foreman could picture the President sitting in his office with his advisers; a man who had not even been born when Foreman was flying combat missions in World War II; sitting among other men who had not known the strife of world-wide conflict. “No one has conclusively proven the continental drift theory or--”

“What is your degree in?” Professor Simmons demanded.

“I don’t have a degree,” Foreman said. “I was discussing a theory and all I want the President to know is that you were discussing a theory also. I think we take too much for granted as fact that, although most evidence points that way, might not indeed be fact. I’ve been studying these Gates for over sixty years. I would say I know more about them than you do, Professor Simmons, but at least I can admit what I do know isn’t much.”

“So obviously you knew something was strange about this area in Cambodia before Michelet Industries sent its plane over the Angkor Gate?” the President asked.

“Yes, sir, I did.”

“You didn't think it proper to warn Mister Michelet?”

“Sir, how could I warn them? You've seen the data on Bright Eye getting destroyed and still you doubt what I am telling you about these places. We gave Michelet the data on the Angkor Gate area. The planes lost. The Special Forces mission lost. We
did
warn him as best we could. He still went ahead.”